Well, the outer layer of skin cells is usually dead anyway I believe. There is also a substance that is secreted, keratin I think?, that makes our skin waterproof. Overproduction of this makes the skin not stick to itself and causes dandruff.

Yeah, that it why you get pruned, it's actually your cells secreting the jellious material, I also think it's keratin, that is used to withhold some of the water, the keratin acts as a sort of exterior membrane to the skin because of the secretion. Also, the secretion is made of lipids, and lipids are insoluble, so there you go.

Saying that any two humans are exactly alike is like saying republicans have morals

Plant cells prefer a hypotonic solution so they stay turgid. Animal cells burst because they don't have a cell wall.

But here's a quote from wikipedia that backs up what I said previously about keratin.

Keratin is a tough, insoluble protein found in the outer layer of the skin of human beings and many other animals. This outer layer of skin is called the epidermis. The outermost layer of cells of the epidermis contains keratin. The keratin in these cells makes the skin tough and almost completely waterproof. In places where the skin is exposed to much rubbing and pressure – such as parts of the hands and feet – the number of cells containing keratin increases and a callus develops. Cells that contain keratin are constantly being shed and replaced by new ones. The condition known as dandruff results when the scalp sheds such cells.

mithrilhack wrote:hmm, our bio teacher showed up skin tissue the other day and said it was dense connective tissue made with collagen. Im inclined to think he's wrong...again :\

Oh boy, structure of the skin. Ok, here it goes:
Skin is composed of 3 layers: epidermus, dermus and hypodermus.
The epidermus is a pluristratified squamos keratinised epithelial tissue formed from 20-25 cell layers. These are divided into 5 regions(also layers): base layer, spine layer, granular layer, lucid layer and the 5th one whch i can not translate. The first 2 make up the germinating blanket and the last 3 make up the rigid blanket. It is estimated that it takes aproximately 3 weeks for a cell to reach the top layer from the base one.
The dermus is made out of dense connective tissue. This is made out of the papillary dermus and the reticulary dermus. In the papillary layer you can find the dermic papiles(duh!) which are more obvious on your hinger and which give you fingerprints. In the reticular dermus you can find many colagen fibers, along with a lot of intercelular substance and few cells.
The hypodermus is made out of connective tissue(we call it "lax" in romanian but i don't know how it's called in english)with a variable number of fat cells that form adipose padicules(around 200-400) around blood vessels and nerve endings. Here you can also find the hair folicules according to some biologists(others place it in the dermus) and the glomerule of the sweat glands.

So you see, Dave, your teacher knows some biology, but something tells me i would do a better job than him

"As a biologist, I firmly believe that when you're dead, you're dead. Except for what you live behind in history. That's the only afterlife" - J. Craig Venter